This year’s annual conference was titled “Building a Brighter Future Through Supply Chain Collaboration” and was attended by over 600 supply chain professionals to promote the use of ECR techniques to remove unnecessary costs from the supply chain and make the sector, as a whole, more responsive to consumer demand.

Presented by David Edwards, Loscam’s General Manager Group Business Development, the session focussed on the key findings and benefits gained from international implementations of retail ready packaging, and the importance of manufacturers and retailers working closely together to deliver solutions, ultimately sharing the benefits.

Neil McCann Joint Chairman of ECR Thailand Presents a Gift to David Edwards, at right.

“Loscam has been working closely with the major retailers and manufacturers in Thailand since 2011, promoting the concepts of retail ready” David said. “It is pleasing to see the focus now being placed on the Last Mile by ECR members here at the conference and back in their boardrooms. We see Loscam being able to play a key role integrating the needs of both manufacturers and retailers to achieve commercially sustainable outcomes”.

Conference participants heard how the early days of retail ready solutions focused on the produce sector where fast moving, fragile and higher margin goods needed to be moved quickly and safely from farm to point of sale. The concept then moved to the FMCG sector, pioneered mostly by Tesco in the UK over 10 years ago now.

“Judging by the level of interest in what was presented here today, I really do believe Thailand is on the cusp of capitalising on the savings made possible through collaborating on retail ready projects” David said.

ECR Thailand is an independent joint trade and industry body, launched in 1999, to promote the use of ECR techniques to remove unnecessary costs from the supply chain and make the sector, as a whole, more responsive to consumer demand.